295 



Edible Product*. 



the packing and pay too much attention to having the top layer of choice 

 specimens, and give little attention to the quality of the fruit in the centre 

 of the package. No vegetable grower, or vegetable section, can build up a name 

 by being careless about the matter of grading and packing. 



In packing each fruit should be wrapped with paper and carefully placed 

 in the basket. Too much care cannot be taken to see that the fruit is not 

 bruised in any way, and that the fruit in each package is packed solidly so 

 that it cannot move in transit. 



THE DISPOSAL OF TEA PRUNINGS. 



Bearing in mind the great controversy which has existed for some years 

 in reference to the most practical and profitable treatment of tea primings, I 

 was much interested to read in the Overland Ceylon Observer, under the date 

 of February 24th, the remarks made by Mr. Joseph Eraser as Chairman at the 

 annual meeting of the Pitakande Tea Company. 



He stated that the average yield of tea during the past year had been 

 528 lb., per acre, the best yield having been 833 lb., and the lowest 213 lb., 

 and that all the primings had been burnt at a cost of 5 "58 cents per lb. 



It would be generally useful, as well as interesting, if the Chairmen of 

 other tea Companies would afford, either in the annual reports or in their own 

 remarks at the meetings, some information as to the treatment of tea primings 

 namely, whether they were burned or buried. The rapidity, with which Ceylon 

 has hitherto established new industries and carried them to a successful issue^ 

 has been largely due to the good fellowship of those in authority, and the 

 willingness to make publicly known each improvement as it was introduced. 

 In fact the general publication of new ideas has resulted in general advantages 

 and successive improvements have followed the introduction of new machines 

 or processes. 



On the 23rd December, 1903, the writer addressed a short note to the 

 Ceylon Observer which was published about the middle of January, 1904, pointing out 

 that the indiscriminate burying in all kinds of soil and under all conditions of 

 climate of the primings, which had been too generally adopted, was likely to 

 lead to unsatisfactory results, and that while in theory the idea of supplying 

 humus to the soil by the use of leaves and small twigs was correct, still that 

 to be of practical use the conditions of soil and weather must be favourable. 



Damp green leaves, associated with large branches if buried over six 

 inches deep in a stiff ferruginous clay soil, saturated with water in a wet districts 

 were more likely to be a source of fungoid disease than to afford plant food 

 to the tea shrub. 



The damp acid fermentation of green leaves must always be injurious to 

 the rootlets of shrubs and plants. 



Instead of the wholesale burying of the primings in trenches between 

 the tea, the writer suggested their removal to a central spot, where the leaves 

 should be stripped off, placed in a heap, and allowed to decay with .some soil 

 and a little freshly burned lime; while the branches and twigs should be 

 stacked and subsequently used for fuel. 



It would be interesting to know after the lapse of three years what is 

 now the generally adopted treatment of tea prunings on Ceylon estates.— Yours 

 faithfully, 



JOHN HUGHES. 

 Analytical Laboratory, Mark Lane, London, E.C., March 23rd, 1906. 



